CERN and NUST MISIS Assign Duties in the Search for Hidden Particles

On October 3rd, 2017, NUST MISIS and CERN signed an agreement which assigns the specific duties of all the participants of the SHiP (Search for Hidden Particles) experiment.

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As stated in the agreement, the key step of the SHiP experiment involves the design, construction and test of an exact copy of both the target and hadron absorber, as well as the measurement of the muon spectrum of impulses entering an active muon screen. The purpose of the measurement is to determine the spectrum of impulses of the SHiP’s target and hadron absorber, so the team can develop a more realistic muon screen. The optimization of the measurement of the cross-section production of charmed particles will also be conducted during the project.

NUST MISIS is actively participating in the design and construction of the target’s layout for SHiP, as well as the cross-section detector for the production of charmed particles. The additional muon detectors will be installed in the detectors already in the system, including on those used for emulsion films (based on similar technology to Natalya Polukhina`s development, a leading expert at NUST MISIS).

Other participants of CERN — University of Geneva, University of Hamburg, INFN, KODEL, University of Bonn, EPFL, Imperial College London and Nagoya University — will also sign similar agreements with CERN.

Each of the CERN participants is contributing to the creation of the target prototype, but CERN considers NUST MISIS’s participation to be one of the most significant.

“In 2015, NUST MISIS became a participant of the SHiP experiment at the earliest stages of the project`s formation, and in 2017 the NUST MISIS Center for Infrastructure Collaboration & Partnership MegaScience led by Professor Andrei Golutvin was created at the University. Today, NUST MISIS is a participant of 4 projects of the MegaScience level: Horizon 2020, MoEDAL, LHCb and SHiP”, said Alevtina Chernikova, Rector of NUST MISIS.

The first stage — the construction of the target layout and the corresponding container is scheduled for December 2017, and the model’s experiments will start in March 2018.

Even though work on the SHiP experiment is just beginning, it has already brought several important results for NUST MISIS. In particular, on October 3rd, 2017, NUST MISIS signed two memorandums on cultural and scientific cooperation with other participants of the SHiP experiment: INFN and the University of Naples Federico II (UNINA). The universities have formed the joint project “Promising technological, methodological, and materials solutions in the search for new physical phenomena”, through which the parties plan to share scientific knowledge, to develop joint training programs, and to exchange research and students.